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"Can nothing be done for her?" Dorcas asked

"Not by me, and it is not a task of the kind the Cureat need"

"But she will live?"

"As the Mother told you - though she will not wish it"

Hildegrin cleared his throat and spat over the side of the roof "That's settled then We've done e can for her, and it's all we can do So what I say is let's get on e coood these others showed up I got the e of Leaves, just like er here can help me fetch up this Apu-Punchau, and ith lad to have hioin' ahead?"

"Nothing," the Cumaean murmured "The star is in the ascendant"

Dorcas said, "If we're going to assist you with soin' back the past," Hildegrin told her grandly "Divin' back into the tireatness There was somebody who used to live in this here place we're sittin' on that knew things that could h point, if I may say it, of a career that's already considered pretty spectacular in knowin' circles"

I asked, "You're going to open the tomb? Surely, even with alzabo - "

The Cumaean reached out to smooth Jolenta's forehead "We may call it a tomb, but it was not his His house, rather"

"You see ith rin explained, "I've been in the way to do this Chatelaine a favor now and again More than one, if I ured the time had come for me to collect I mentioned my little plan to the Master of the Wood, you may be sure And here we are"

I said, "I had been given to understand that the Cumaean served Father Inire"

"She pays her debts," Hildegrin announced sly "Quality always does And you don't have to be a oht be wise to have a few friends on the other side, just in case that's the side that wins"

Dorcas asked the Cumaean, "Who was this Apu-Punchau and why is his palace still standing when the rest of the town is only tumbled stones?"

When the old woend, for not even scholars now remember his story The Mother has told us that his namethe people here and taught them many wonderful secrets Often he vanished, but always he returned At last he did not return, and invaders laid waste to his cities Now he shall return for the last tiic?"

The Cuht as the stars "Words are syic as that which does not existand so it does not exist If you choose to call e are about to do here ic lives while we do it In ancient days, in a land far off, there stood two empires, divided by reen For a hundred generations they struggled I see that the man with you knows the tale"

"And after a hundred generations," I said, "an ere them and counseled the ereen, and the reen army that he should clothe it in yellow But the battle continued as before In my sabretache, I have a book called The Wonders of Urth and Sky, and the story is told there"

"That is the wisest of all the books of ain any benefit froe in ti witch nodded "All tiends the epopts tell If the future did not exist no could we journey toward it? If the past does not exist still, how could we leave it behind us? In sleep the mind is encircled by its time, which is e so often hear the voices of the dead there, and receive intelligence of things to come Those who, like the Mother, have learned to enter the sa live surrounded by their own lives, even as the Abraxas perceives all of time as an eternal instant"

There had been little wind that night, but I noticed now that such wind as there had been had died utterly A stillness hung in the air, so that despite the softness of Dorcas's voice her words see "Is that what this woman you call the Cu with the voice of the dead tell this man whatever it is he wishes to know?"

"She cannot She is very old, but this city was devastated whole ages before she cas her, for that is all her e To restore the city, we must make use of a mind that existed when it hole"

"And is there anyone in the world that old?"

The Cumaean shook her head "In the world? No Yet such a mind exists Look where I point, child, just above the clouds The red star there is called the Fish's Mouth, and on its one surviving world there dwells an ancient and acute er, take the other Torturer, take the right hand of your sick friend, and Hildegrin's Your paramour must take the sick woman's other hand, and Merryn'sNoe are linked, men to one side, women to the other"

"And we'd best do sorumbled "There's a storm comin', I would say"

"We shall, as quickly as may be Now I must use all minds, and the sick wo your thought Do as I bid you" Releasing Merryn's hand for a moment, the old woman (if she were in truth a woman at all) reached into her bodice and drew out a rod whose tips vanished into the night as if they were at the borders of er She opened her ht she meant to hold the rod between her teeth, but she sed it A ed with cri skin of her throat

"Close eyes, all of youThere is a woh woman chainednever mind, Torturer, I know her now Do not shrink from my handNone of you shrink from my hand"